February, 2021 Volume 45, Issue 2 The LongPath A North Alabama DX Club Publication

Contents From the President

▪ From the President I saw the February issue of the Long Path com- uting articles, you should think about that one. ing from some distance. I’ve been trying to pack ▪ February Program Another question that got a compelling re- more articles into the newsletter since the plague sponse was the length of the presentations. ▪ Relief for the Weary struck last year. With a small club like ours, 18- Many of you thought the presentation length DXer page issues can’t continue for very long. I was on Zoom was too long. I don’t know how to put afraid of running out of gas, so I scheduled a a hard time length on the presentations, but ▪ Winter Field Day directors’ meeting and sent out a survey a few understand that Zoom does have its limita-

▪ Why I Bought... weeks ago. I was trying to be aggressive, so I tions. You can’t see data very well, and you sent the surveys to almost 90 people. I thank can’t interact with the speaker nearly as well. ▪ Ionospherica those who did respond, and I’ll try to do what you I’ll see what I can do here. I’m also hearing asked. that Zoom is the enabler for members that live ▪ DX Contests far away, and have been asked if we could In last month’s Long Path, I mentioned that I continue to use Zoom after the plague goes ▪ Using Natural was looking for articles regarding your station Resources away. That is possible, but will take some do- configuration, as well as product reviews. Well, ing. how did those topics score in your ratings? The ▪ Product Review- Chamelion MPAS highest rated category was antennas, and sec- I’m still trying to figure why our For Sale ads ond place was a tie between ham shacks and seem dead on arrival. I’ve offered radios for ▪ Casual DXer operating. So let’s start down that path right now. free and have gotten no calls. If anyone can This month you’ll see a series of articles about answer that one for me, I’m all ears. We don’t ▪ Minutes “why I bought my rig.” And our program will be on have a For Sale section this month. ICOM’s newest offering, the IC-705. I’ll try to fo- ▪ Dues Reminder There is a very good chance we can have a cus on antennas next month. I covered antennas Huntsville this year. I have called the ▪ Financial Report using EZNEC last month. hotel and am working on setting up the DX

▪ WFD Thanks I eased up the pressure on some of our au- Banquet. thors this month, so the Long Path is shorter. But So come join us for another covid-free virtu- ▪ WFD Reflections I was surprised to see how many of you actually al meeting of the NADXC on Tuesday, February wanted the newsletter to be longer than 18 pag- ▪ Proposed 2021 9. We’ll use Zoom again. I’ll send you another Budget es! And absolutely no one wanted it to be a lot shorter. To all of you who have not been contrib- Cont’d on p. 9

How to Join Icom IC-705 February Program by Steve Molo, KI4KWR * Come to a Since the Why I Bought column is being intro- club meeting; duced this months focusing on rigs, it is appro- 7:00 PM Tuesday priate for our program to feature a rig presenta- * or send in an tion—by VP Steve Molo, KI4KWR on the Icom February 9, 2021 application by 705. Bob will send an email with the Zoom par- mail (form on ticulars. Be there around 6:30 pm for informal 7:00 pm on Zoom www.NADXC.org) discussion, meeting at 7:00 and program around 7:30. See you there!

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Relief for the Weary DXer By John Stensby, N5DF

Are you feeling a little blue over poor I thought so. Well, a little reminisc- band conditions? A dearth of sun ing about previous NADXC fun activities spots and the lack of major DXpedi- might relieve your doldrums. Peruse tions got you down? Do you have my previously-unpublished 2019 “cabin fever” from being stuck at home NADXC Picnic montage and dream of due to the pandemic? better days. The event was hosted by Bruce, AC4G, in Taft, TN.

Food to Fuel the Deserving Every Picnic needs a Cake

Let the Good Times Roll! The Maven in his Domain

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Winter Field Day By Mark Brown, N4BCD

On a cool Saturday in January, HARC with a sprinkling of VE’s. The exchange members turned out to participate in was a little different from Summer FD. Winter Field Day (WFD). Unlike the The majority of contacts were with 1H ARRL sanctioned summer Field Day, (Home) stations, with many 1I (Indoor), HARC members approached this event and a few 1O (Outdoor). Notable was with minimal planning and expecta- the 5O we worked from SFL. Guess tions. We are thankful to our host, they had a day at the beach. We oper- Gary W9SGM for the use of his farm ated as 2I with the generator bonus. which also worked very well for HARC’s Chris AI4U operating inside the barn. The phone station shut down around downsized 2020 summer FD. 8:15 PM for the evening and started up Summer FD involves hitting the field again on Sunday morning and ran until length actually determined the location at the crack of dawn on Friday to set up 1 PM. The log shows 515 total QSO’s. of the 35’ crank-up aluminum tower. towers, directional antennas, trailers, Simple rope guys were tied to tent The CW station used the “blueberry stations, and generators before making stakes to support the tower. shack”; and was organized by Mark completions on Saturday morning for AA2MA with assistance from Tom The CW station while not suffering the 1PM commencement of opera- KG4CUY who supplied the equipment. any operational problems, did suffer tions. WFD setup was accomplished in The station used the IC-756 Pro III with from a lack of participation on that a few hours on Saturday morning with a Palstar tuner feeding a ladderline fed mode. One factor might have been the fewer people, simpler antennas, exist- doublet. Using the crude arm-span CQ 160 CW contest underway during ing shelters, and smaller generators. method to check the length before it the night time hours. The minimal plan was to run a CW went up revealed the length to be Two benefits of Gary’s farm are its and a Phone station using multiband about 42 feet per side. The ladderline electrically quiet location and the ability antennas in an inverted V fashion, tak- to space the stations further apart. ing advantage of Gary’s numerous Neither station produced any hint of trees for supporting the ends of the interference with the other station. wires. Many of us expressed concern for Chris AI4U organized a Phone station the overnight forecast of 30 MPH winds using his Yaesu FT-991A, MFJ auto- with gusts to 40 but fortunately those tuner, and a DX-80 Off-Center Fed di- concerns were unfounded. pole . The first attempt to use a telescoping mast was a failure when Sunday teardown started with the the combined weight at the feedpoint CW station since they were making so of the heavy coax, balun, and wire few contacts and everything was pretty caused the pole to look like a flyrod well wrapped up by early afternoon. with a tarpon on the hook before One of the benefits of field opera- breaking. The HARC crank-up tower was quickly brought into position and Cont’d on p. 10 was more than capable of supporting the center. Everyone who operated brought their own headset to maintain the COVID distancing guidelines. The money band turned out to be 40m, with a few QSO’s on 80, 20, and 10m. All afternoon, various operators enjoyed good runs, with the majority of contacts into OH, MI, IN, NY, but just The first phone antenna support couldn’t handle Gary W9SGM, Steve KO4ALA, Phil W4EVV and Willie KO4ALY positioned the HARC crank-up about all states are shown in the log the weight but was quickly replaced with the HARC crank-up tower. tower to support the wire antenna.

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Why I Bought...

[This month we begin a column treat- Flex 6500 the new laptop. I can't speak highly ing why NADXC members bought or Bob DePierre, K8KI enough of this computer. otherwise acquired certain items of hardware and software for their Kenwood TS-890 shacks. This first edition deals with John Stensby, N5DF rigs—we hope to follow with antennas, amps, etc. To share your “Why I Bought…” thought processes with the club, please send whatever you have to Bob, K8KI or Tom, KG4CUY. Thanks! - 1. After seeing a panadapter screen ed.] for the first time, I was bitten hard. I wanted the largest full feature 1. Very good specs. Icom 7300 screen I could find. Fits nicely on a Ralph King, K1KOB 24" monitor. I can trash a pileup 2. All of the important (to me) features. with this puppy. 3. A very well written Service Manual is 2. Integrated sound (DAX) and serial available (I bought one). It includes port software (CAT). I've tried inte- a complete set of schematics, cir- grating third party software and I've cuit board pictures with call-outs had problems, just in figuring out and very detailed alignment proce- which side the problem was on. Now dure(s). I really hate to buy stuff for I don't need any cables at all for which no/little technical documen- 1. The IC-7300 is a 160 - 50 (74) MHZ sound integration, and the OEM is tation is available. 100 watt all mode rig. It's even 100 the guy responsible for any CAT watts on 6 meters multimode too. 4. Kenwood is an established problems. I haven't had any prob- brand. They will be around long 2. At the time (just before Christmas) lems at all in a while. after I'm gone. A large number of there was a $300.00 rebate. 3. Sherwood specs. Two levels of pre- 890s have been (and will be) sold, 3. It has a real-time spectrum scope, amp can hear down to -141dBm, assuring the availability of service SDR, and a large touch screen. My and the IMD dynamic range is way and spare parts for a long time to old Ten Tec Pegasus that I had for over 100dB. And those filters have come. the last 20 years didn't have a front just killed interference I used to 5. I have an affinity for the Kenwood panel (screen), and no 6 meters, hear in contests. brand. From about 1981 to this only 8 watts with a transverter. 4. Smooth integration of many third day, I've owned and used a Ken- 4. It is going to have a One Touch FT8 party programs, such as Slice Mas- wood TS-530s and TR-7950 (2 me- mode preset. It already has CW and ter (shows call signs adjacent to ter FM rig). Also, I have a Kenwood RTTY mode presets. each signal on the analyzer); SDR R5000 general coverage receiv- bridge (runs my knob - the Flex con- er. Just like there are Ford and 5. The built in antenna auto tuner is trol); and all the others that run eve- Chevy people, I'm a Kenwood guy. (I very fast and tunes my 265 ft win- ry day: HRD, N1MM, WSJT, etc. have service manuals for the 530, dom just fine. the 7950 and the 5000). 5. Excellent documentation and cus-

tomer service from the OEM. Be- fore I got my new laptop (Dell XPS13 i7 with docking station) I had lots of computer problems and needed to call for help fairly often. I don't know why, but all those problems fully disappeared with

Cont’d on p. 5

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Why I Bought... (cont’d from p. 4)

Kenwood TS-890 2. Aesthetics - I much prefer a tradi- and the TS-990 which was way Art Davis, N4UC tional (i.e. boring) layout and ap- more radio than I needed or could pearance. By that I mean I like afford. Could it be that I would be things such as big knobs with priced out of owning another Ken- I have owned several radios in my enough spacing to accommodate wood for the rest of my life due to a years as a ham radio operator. Some my fat digits. Also large size lettering marketing decision probably made were memorable (Drake Twins), some especially for the frequency readout. by a 20-something marketing man- were not (Heath HW-100). It all began No flashing neon lights, 3 layers of ager straight out of college? Thank- in 1967 with my novice rig, a Knight-Kit nested menus, or 3-D spectrum fully they finally filled in the gap with R-100 receiver and DX-60 displays please! the TS890 that satisfied my needs . Over the next 55 years I without requiring a second mort- also owned a Heathkit SB301/401, 3. Brand loyalty, maybe? I have owned gage. Kenwood TS-830 and TS-940, TenTec Kenwood radios longer than any Orion, Elecraft K3, and now my current other brand. Plus, all my mobile ra- radio Kenwood TS-890. Noticeably dios are Kenwoods. Looking back This was my thought process. Hope- missing from this list are Yaesu and on it I guess it all goes back to the fully it provided you some food for ICOM products. Although I have been fact that my first serious HiFi Stereo thought when your wife says lovingly, sorely tempted from time to time with component system was based on "Honey, I think it's time". We all know offerings from those companies (FT- my 1972 Kenwood KA_8100 stereo that's the signal for you to get on the 101ZD, FT-1000, ICOM IC-751 come to amplifier and KT-7500 FM receiver. internet and start radio shopping, mind) it just never happened. Of course Joe Walsh on vinyl still sounds great right? it also goes without saying that back in on them! the 60's and early 70's a Collins S-Line 4. Physical Size - OK, I'm getting old Cont’d on p. 6 was on everybody's bucket list. and you would think that I would When I recently decided to shop for a prefer a smaller, lighter weight ra- VP Corner dio, right? NO. Radios are supposed new radio, ICOM had just released the By Steve Molo, KI4KWR 7610, Elecraft was promising a K4 but to be big and heavy and emanate wasn't sure when it would ever be avail- waves of heat to warm the shack in Hope everyone is doing well in 2021 able, and the new Yaesu FTDX-101 was the wintertime. One cherished so far. Though this coming weekend tied up in the FCC approval cycle. After memory of my early ham days was should have been Orlando HamCation a couple of more years waiting for all of my friends Hallicrafters HT-37/HT both Jessica and I will be traveling to the new rigs to materialize so I could do -41 and Hammarlund HQ-170 in his Vero Beach, FL for Treasure Coast fair comparisons, I ended up buying a small shack (the younger folks will Hamfest that Saturday. new Kenwood TS-890 at the 2019 have to Google them). Warm and CQ 160 CW was booming last week- Huntsville Hamfest. toasty with the smell of heated dust end as I expected and hope for the coming off the tubes, almost heav- Here are the reasons I chose the same at the end of the month for the en! The TS-890, while not a very 890. Your mileage may vary: SSB portion. Finally, will be able to give good space heater, does come clos- the 160-meter vertical a chance for 1. Reliability - If you find something est to meeting the minimum size success. Don’t fear we are still plan- that works, stick with it. I still use my requirements. If they had just put ning on our favorite hamfest of the year TS-940 daily after 33 years of own- the power supply in the cabinet like and hopefully a DX Dinner for us all to ership without a failure (unless you the 940, that would have done it for support and hear a presentation from count light bulbs). It's built like a sure. our guest speaker. Sherman tank and so is the new 5. Price - After the TS_990 came out, I TS890. I do however fully expect See you in the pileups!! was afraid that Kenwood was going one of us to have a failure some- to offer just one radio at each end of 73, Steve Molo KI4KWR time before the passing of another the price spectrum. For several 33 years though. years their only products were the TS-590 which they kept upgrading,

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Why I Bought... (cont’d from p. 5)

Yaesu FTDX3000 tures. Then the SDR era began and the I am still very happy with this radio Fred Kepner, KF3FRK 7300 came into my shack. Time and continue to learn with it. passed. I was running two weekly nets Yaesu FTDX-101MP vs FTDX-5000D for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, one voice Steve Werner, AG4W and one digital. I wanted some ham radio activity for myself. In 2018 I signed up to attend the Dayton Hamfest and wanting to add an extra day also signed up for Contest Why I bought it and why I still use it: University of which Icom is a sponsor. I 1. I got a sweet, sweet deal on it as had been thinking that I wanted to ex- part of a package from a ham who pand the activities I did in ham radio needed to raise cash ASAP and wanted to use the radio better. I had read about all the features on this 2. The built-in USB port and soundcard radio some of which I understood and simplifies digital modes some I did not. (Actually many I did 3. The CW decoder (although I've never not.) There was a coupon that year of- really gotten it working well, need fered by Icom to those that attended FTDX-101MP Advantages over FT DX - some help!) Contest University and there was a sec- 5000D ond coupon offered as well. So that More traditional controls and knobs 1. Number 1 on Sherwood’s receiver brought the price down to just below than my previous radio, an FT-991. list. 110 dB narrow-band dynamic my established limit. What I wish it had: range. With my history of buying Icom prod- 2. Hybrid Architecture - best proper- An ethernet port and an easy way to ucts I have gotten used to reading Icom ties of SDR and down-converting implement remote operation. manuals, so that made it easier to use radios Icom 7610 and learn new features. I joined that .io Susan Seaford, AI4VV group that Adam Farson and Rob Sher- 3. VC tuning on main and sub receiv- wood contribute to. Andrew Barrons er -70 dB of interference reduction- also started writing books on these great for 160 meters Icom models. So I had other materials 4. 2D and 3D spectrum scope to learn from. 5. Digital noise reduction and CW I have liked the new radio for many peaking filter- industry leader be- reasons. Using it on the same nets and fore. Even better now. with the same antenna I noticed that I In 2018 after attending Contest Uni- could hear better. With the history of Cont’d on p. 12 versity at Dayton, I placed an order for using Icom products the user interface The LongPath Staff the Icom 7610 at the Dayton Hamfest. was familiar to me. The screen is large Why did I do that? and can be used with a monitor. Filter Publisher/Editor: Let me go back in time. When I was adjustments are great. The notch filter Tom Duncan, KG4CUY first licensed in 2004 my 1st purchase is amazing. Noise reduction is good. It Departments: was an Icom handheld followed by an integrates will with my new desktop Icom 706MKIIG. The latter worked well computer. I had selected an Elecraft Chuck Lewis, N4NM, DX Contests amp and preamp to use with the 7300 except not very many things were con- Chris Reed, AI4U, Minutes trolled on the face of the radio. Then it and when the 7610 came I just took Bob De Pierre, K8KI, From the President was time for a real radio: the Icom the cables out of the 7300 and into the 756ProIII. It always worked well though 7610. Digital modes are easy to set up Steve Molo, KI4KWR, VP Corner (and reset up after Windows updates). I did not avail myself of its many fea- Kevin Hibbs, KG4TEI, The Casual DXer

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Ionospherica By Kai Siwiak, KE4PT

The Gap Resonated HF Loop ameter, and resonated by a capacitor form a high-Q resonant circuit where The small gap resonated HF loop is in the loop gap. the “beneficial” loss is radiation re- sistance. Measuring the Q and perfor- popular for portable QRP operations. In We will look at the near fields of the mance of a small HF loop are dis- the previous Ionospherica we explored loop, how it couples to the ground com- cussed in [1]. the bent dipole near the ground, and pared to a dipole, and how it couples to how its fields couple to the ground and the ionosphere. Loop near field analysis is very com- to the ionosphere. This time we’ll take plex. Necessarily, this will involve some Figure 1 shows a portable ham radio on the small loop near the ground. The equations, but we’ll keep them to a operator using a small loop. HF loops, loop is often thought to be a purely minimum and as uncomplicated as are typically about 1 m in diameter, magnetic antenna, but it can have a possible! We’ll look at some specific incorporate a tuning-resonating capaci- very strong electric near field as well as results, including close electric near tor and some sort of feeding mecha- a strong magnetic field. We confine our field expressions that are not readily nism, which can take the form of a sec- discussion to small loops, those less available elsewhere. than one-tenth of a wavelength in di- ondary feeding loop or a shunt feeding arrangement. The loop and capacitor The Close Near Fields of Small Loops According to derivations in [2], the loop current I(f) around the cirumfer- ence f of the electrically small loop is not constant, but has a f dependency,

I() = I (1− 2(kb) 2 cos()) 0 (1)

where I0 is the loop feed current, b is k = 2  the loop radius, and . Every- where on the loop of wire radius a the surface tangential magnetic field is,

I() H surface = 2a (2) The current correction term in Eq (1) that depends on f is the first term of a Fourier series expansion of the exact loop current, and is usually ignored. This term, however, results in a charge accumulation on the loop, and that in turn gives rise to an impressive close- near electric field. The electric fields near the loop are very complex and very difficult to calcu- late analytically, however at the center (x,y) = (0,0) of a small loop in the x-y plane (see Figure 2) the result is re- markably simple,

Cont’d on p. 8

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Ionospherica By Kai Siwiak, KE4PT

0 kI 0 E0,0 = − j 2 (3) where h0=376.7 W. Note that the elec- tric field at the loop center does not depend on any loop dimensions (for an electrically small loop). This electric field is y-directed, or horizontally polar- ized inside the loop for a vertical loop oriented with the resonating capacitor Figure 1—The small gap resonated loop fed by a secondary loop makes a compact portable at the top as shown in Figure 1. More HF antenna for QRP expeditions. Source: ©2014 Chris Dean, KD7CNJ, used with permis- on this later. sion. The magnetic field at the loop cen- ter, using classic solenoid analysis, is simply

I 0 H 0,0 = 2b (4) Unlike the electric field in the center, the magnetic field depends on the loop diameter 2b. The wave impedance Zw at the origin is the ratio of E0,0 to H0,0,

Z = − j kb w 0 (5) Figure 2—The (left) solenoidal magnetic fields on the loop surface (Hsurface) and in the cen- Since Zw in the loop center is not zero, ter (H0,0) are easily determined. The (right) electric fields at the center (E0,0), the gap the small gap-resonated loop is clearly (Egap) and opposite the gap (E = 0) are also easy to determine. not a purely magnetic antenna, and in this orientation its close near-field po- slight departure from a constant loop V = X Q P larization is at right angles to the far cap C L current seen in Eq (1). That field is of field polarization! (6) great interest when we assess RF expo- In addition to providing insight into where XC is the capacitor reactance at sure from a small HF loop. resonance, Q is the loaded Q of the the behavior of small loops, equations L Loop Far Fields (1)–(5) are useful for validating the system [1], and P is the power radiated In the orientation of Figure 1, with results of numerical electromagnetic by the loop so, the plane of the loop perpendicular to code (NEC) such as MiniNEC. V the ground, the far magnetic field pat- E = gap We can easily find the exact electric gap g tern (see Figure 3) is toroidal. A slice field at three specific places inside the (6) through the y-z plane (parallel to the small loop: E0,0 (Eq 3) at the loop cen- ground) has a figure-eight pattern, with where g is the gap dimension. Vgap can ter, Egap across the gap-capacitor, and nulls directed along the z-axis, the opposite the gap, where E=0. The elec- be almost 1 kV peak at QRP power lev- same as that of a horizontal dipole ori- tric field at the gap-capacitor is easy to els. ented along the z-axis. The loop electric find from the rms capacitor voltage, An important take-away here is that far field wraps around the z-axis and is there can be an enormous electric field vertically polarized near the horizon. near the small loop whose origin is the Cont’d on p. 9

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Ionospherica (cont’d from p. 8)

Figure 5—The electric field energy exceeds Figure 4—Loop field coupling to the ground the magnetic field energy when the field vs. height of the loop center in meters. impedance Zw /376.7 exceeds 1 (solid Figure 3—The magnetic far field of a verti- contours). cal loop is solenoidal. Its electric far field wraps around the z-axis and is vertically 2. K. Siwiak and Y. Bahreini, Radio- polarized near the horizon. for coupling between a loop and its image in a perfect ground. For the QRP wave Propagation and Antennas for Personal Communications, Coupling to the Ionosphere and Earth operator this means that the loop tun- Third Edition, Artech House, Nor- The loop radiation pattern null on ing will not be perturbed very much by wood MA: 2007, Chapter 11. changes to the height above ground. the z-axis becomes less prominent and 3. E. Hare, W1RFI, RF Exposure and the pattern more omni-directional as Loop RF Safety You, ARRL, Newington, CT, Table the radiation angle relative to the 17, p. 8.77, www.arrl.org/shop/. With just 10 W RF power the voltage ground increases. This means that on the loop at the tuning capacitor loop radiation will couple in all direc- peaks out at nearly 1 kV peak, (multiply Kazimierz (Kai) Siwiak, KE4PT, is an tions into the ionosphere at the 5 to Eq (6) by 1.41), and is a safety con- avid DXer who packs a DX-go-bag sta- 20 degree elevation angles that are cern. At 10 W the FCC compliance dis- tion on his travels. His technical writ- important to DX communications. tance for RF exposure, see [3], is be- ings appear in many publications. You Although the electric field inside the tween 1.3 and 1.5 m (<5 ft) from the can reach Kai at [email protected]. loop is horizontally polarized, far from loop center across 7–29 MHz. Figure 5 the loop (more than a few wave- shows that the electric field near the lengths) the electric field has only a Ef loop may be of more concern than the This article reprinted from the Fall component, so the polarization is verti- magnetic field, especially on the capac- 2014 edition of QRP Quarterly with cal at angles near the horizon! itor side (top) of the antenna. permission of the author. Small loops couple weakly to the Enjoy QRP operation with your loop – ground, as seen in Figure 4. The mutu- safely! al inductive coupling to ground for the From the President 1 m diameter loop is 7% when resting References (cont’d from p. 1) just above a perfect ground, and only

0.34% when the center is 1 m above 1. A. Findling, K9CHP, and K. Siwiak, invitation, but the sign-on will be exact- ground. This is far less than the cou- KE4PT, How Efficient is Your QRP ly the same. I’ll open Zoom for informal pling to ground of a horizontal dipole Small Loop Antenna?, QRP Quar- discussion at 6:30, and start the meet- at the same height. I based my calcu- terly, Summer 2012. ing at 7pm. Steve Molo, KI4KWR, will lations on Neumann’s integral formula present the new IC-705 radio.

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Winter Field Day (cont’d from p. 3)

Winter Field Day Participants:

Mark AA2MA Chris AI4U Laura K4CNY Tom KG4CUY

Blueberry shack housing the CW station. John KK5KKT Tim KM4ESU tions is forcing one to think about all John KM4VSY the little things that make up a station. Mark AA2MA running stations on 40m CW. Steve KO4ALA From generator gas can to antenna Willie KO4ALY rope, leaving something at home could needed, our Club could put multiple Douglas KO4DGJ invite failure. None of that happened stations on the air for emergency com- Mark N4BCD here. In fact, the word of the day munications on very short notice. Jim N4KH seemed to be redundancy. Art N4UC

Phil W4EVV HARC’s Winter Field Day was a great 73, Jordan W4HBO success. The exercise proved that if Gary W9SGM Mark N4BCD

Host Gary W9SGM shown here clearing some branches for the ladder-line is not pruning the feedline.

Using Natural Resources for Ham Radio Projects By Bruce Smith, AC4G

I do not know about you, but I am small manufacturing companies in my always thinking how I can improve my area. I have always had a small bit of antennas and equipment in order to noise, but now it is killing my ability to work those rare DX and make more receive those tough ones on 160m. QSO’s in ham radio contests. At the Since the low bands are the bands I moment, my station is receiving a lot of monitor most, I have had some time to hash and trash noise on the order of 5 think about what I can do to eliminate to 20 dB most of the time. My suspi- this noise or reduce it tremendously, so CW station’s Alumina tower (formerly K8KI’s and cion is that it is due to the local power that I can hear those distant DX sta- loaned to us by Warren, K4MMW) and ladder- company increasing the voltage on the tions on the low bands. I came up with line-fed doublet. lines from 7200 VAC to 14,400 VAC to supply 3-phase power to some new, Cont’d on p. 13

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DX Contests for February By Chuck Lewis, N4NM

CQWW RTTY WPX Contest, (DIG), 80-10 UBA (Belgium) Contest (CW), 80-10 meters meters Feb 13, 0000Z to Feb 14, 2359Z Feb 27, 1300Z to Feb. 28, 1300Z Exchange: RST & Serial No. Exchange: RST plus Serial No.; ON See page 73, Feb. QST and stns. send province www.cqwpxrtty.com/rules.htm See page 73, Feb. QST and www.uba.be/en Asia-Pacific Sprint, (CW), 40 & 20 me- ters ARRL Intl. DX Contest, (PHONE), 160- Feb 13, 1100Z to Feb 13, 1300Z 10 meters Exchange: RST & serial # Mar 2, 0000Z to Mar 3, 2400Z See page 73, Feb. QST and Exchange: RS plus State/Province; www.jsfc.org/apsprint/aprule.txt DX send RS plus pwr SARL FD Contest, CW/SSB/DIG, See www.arrl.org/arrl-dx Feb 13, 1000Z - Feb 13, 1000Z ARRL Intl. DX Contest, (CW), 160-10 meters Feb 20, 0000Z to Feb 21, 2359Z Stew Perry Topband Challenge, (CW), Balkan HF contest, CW/SSB, 160 meters Exchange: RST plus State/Province; 1300Z, Feb 14 – 1700Z, Feb 10 DX send RST plus pwr. Mar 13, 1500Z to Mar 14, 1500Z Exchange: 4 Character Grid Square See page 73, Feb. QST and Russian PSK WW contest, DIG, www.arrl.org/arrl-dx See www.kkn.net/stew 1200Z, Feb 20 – 1159Z, Feb 21

CQ 160 Meter Contest (PH), 160 me- Other contests: ters UBA Spring Contest, CW, Feb 26, 2200Z to Feb 28, 2200Z 0700Z -1100Z, Mar 7 Exchange: RS plus State/Province; EurAsia HF championship, CW/SSB,

DX: RS plus CQ zone 0300Z - 1200Z, Feb 6 Dates & times often change or are mis- See page 73, Feb. QST and printed in the journals; beware. www.CQ160.com/rules.htm KCJ Topband Contest, CW, Chuck, N4NM 1200Z, Feb 6 - 1200Z, Feb 7 REF French Contest (PH), 80-10 meters

Feb 27 0600Z to Feb 28, 1800Z Mexico RTTY International Contest, Exchange: RS plus Serial No.; F stns. DIG, send Dept. Feb 6, 1200Z - Feb. 7, 2359Z See page 73, Feb. QST and www.concourse.r-e-f.org/contest/

February, 2021 The LongPath Page 11

Why I Bought... (cont’d from p. 6)

Flex 6400M Flex Radios are Software Defined Power SDR as modified for Softrock Jack Hemby, W5WQQ Radios which are designed around receivers used the digital signal proces- sor in your computer's sound card. sampling theory. Prior radios used the However it took a little while to get conventional superheterodyne design. comfortable not having knobs on the They could be controlled by a comput- radio. er. All features exist in the hardware After playing with a radio that looks within the radio. If you needed differ- like a Flex on the monitor, I decided my ent bandwidth filters, a fixed module old superheterodyne design receiver for each bandwidth you want is re- could not approach the “must have quired. In a SDR, software code makes features” for my probably “last new the filter. New modes, as developed, rig.” I had just become a late 70 year will also exist in software. old. The FlexRadio 6400M which has a After watching the Flex Radio trans- front panel with knobs for operation ceiver demonstration at a hamfest, I It didn't take long to realize the fea- seemed to meet my radio desires. Soft- built and operating several Softrock 40 tures of Power SDR software couldn't ware by Flex Radio allows access and receiver kits. These single band SDR be matched in conventional software control of their radios. receiver kits sold for $10 delivered. controlled radios. Digital signal proces- sor chips now have enough bandwidth They used a modified version of Flex Radio's PowerSDR. So my display to sample and display the whole band. References: looked like I was running a Flex. Here are just a few other things that

Flex Radio was happy for hams to could be done with Power SDR and use a modification of their software. SDR radios. DanTayloe, N7VE, developed quadra- ture sampling detector. Softrock receivers used a quadrature • A real-time dynamic spectrum ana- sampling detector developed by Dan lyzer to show signal density. Have Tayloe, N7VE, to get simple inphase (I) you ever wondered where the other KB9YIG, Tony Parks, produced and sold and 90 degree shifted quadurature (Q) side of a DX is transmitting the Softrock40 kits. www.fivedash.com samples of the input signal. These sig- or that is there a small clear space currently sells Softrock40 kits. nals can be used with sampling theory within the pile-up to try making www.WB5RVZ.org has schematics and to reconstruct the original signal. your transmission? The display can description of Softrock40 products. I ordered the $10 receiver kit to help be expanded to show spacing be- determine if I could successfully work tween closely spaced signals. with surface mount components. I Transmitting in the free space found I could handle the surface mount might give you an advantage. components by using 0.015 size solder • Monitoring two signals within the Cont’d on p. 14 and by using a small tip soldering iron. tuning range. Surface mount components are now • Help determine the mode and sig- my preferred components for assem- nal bandwidth that you are receiv- NADXC Officers and Directors bling kits. As with many projects, mis- ing. cellaneous small tools are handy such President Bob De Pierre, K8KI • New modes may not require any as: magnifying glasses, some means of new hardware, and can be de- Vice President Steve Molo, KI4KWR holding the component in position for signed in software updates. soldering, and soldering wick. Secretary/ Chris Reed, AI4U • Filters are programmed, not hard- ware for each bandwidth desired. Treasurer Do you remember the ringing when you use a narrow bandwidth cw At-large Kevin Hibbs, KG4TEI filter? The little $10 receivers can Directors Tom Duncan, KG4CUY go to 25Hz bandwidth without ring- ing! (Ex-Officio) Steve Werner, AG4W

February, 2021 The LongPath Page 12

Using Natural Resources for Ham Radio Projects (cont’d from p.10) this idea that I believe to be economi- pears to be getting out of control. Some as 9M2, 9V, VU, etc. I have never heard cally feasible for me to try. My idea is to of the bamboo is approximately 30 feet any longpath 160m signals ever. I use one of the natural resources on my long. Bamboo is a non-native plant to found that most of the North America farm that is free and readily available Tennessee and its growth is becoming hams that hear those distant stations for use. My idea is to build another low too erratic for me. I have decided to cut are using high, flag antennas. Also, band receive antenna. There appear to it and use some for my antenna after hearing and studying the different be many articles on the internet for this spreaders for my flag receiving anten- receive antennas that exist, the flag particular receive antenna. This will be na. Since it has been cold being the has some of the best performance my project for this summer 2021. middle of winter (January 2021), I have characteristics for receive antennas. been harvesting my bamboo to avoid Below in Picture 1 and Picture 2 is What is a flag antenna? The flag an- snakes, ticks, and other four-legged the necessary natural resource to help tenna is typically shaped like a flag or critters living on my farm in middle Ten- me build my receive antenna – bam- rectangle (see Figure 1), fed with a nessee. boo. I have read articles from many 10:1 balun and having a 300-500 ohm hams worldwide who use bamboo or So, why did I decide on a flag anten- terminating resistor. The flag antenna palm trees as an antenna support. My na? What is a flag antenna? How will I is highly directional toward the feed idea is to use the bamboo grown on my design my flag antenna? Let’s discuss point. It must be supported and a pre- farm as spreaders for a receive anten- in the remaining part of this article. amp is needed. It can be horizontally na. Specifically, my idea is to build a This article will not discuss any specific polarized and is good for city lots due Flag Antenna. construction details, but will only focus to the little space it takes to perform. on my design plan idea rolling around Its size is approximately 35 ft x 16 ft First, bamboo is a grass in the Bam- in my head. and is rotated on a tower. The antenna busoideae family. It can range in size element can be made from low-visibility from a few inches in height to over 100 I decided to go with a flag antenna #12 gauge wire. The front-to-back gain feet and can grow a foot a day. Bam- because after doing some research is 33.2dB (Figure 2). boo grown in your garden spot can be- trying to figure out why I cannot hear come uncontrollable. The bamboo at distant stations on top band (160m) my QTH began growing about five (5) the other side of the world, but there years ago. It has come to the point are those in the U.S.A. who can. They where I need to cut it because it ap- often hear stations via longpath such

Figure 1: Flag antenna shape

Figure 3 shows the schematic of a typical flag antenna. Direction of recep- tion is toward the feed point which is shown on the left of the picture. The schematic shown is of a pennant an- tenna, but the flag and pennant are very similar except for the shape. My antenna will be shaped like a rectangle since it will be easier to construct and fabricate. How does the bamboo fit into this project? The bamboo will be used as Picture 1: Bamboo brake at AC4G QTH Picture 2: Bamboo harvested at AC4G farm Cont’d on p. 14

February, 2021 The LongPath Page 13

Using Natural Resources for Ham Radio Projects (cont’d from p. 13) spreaders attached to an aluminum in the workshop any time from now boom to hold the wire element. Dried until spring. During the rest of the cur- bamboo will not be a conductor, but an rent winter months, I will be finalizing insulator as it holds the wire into the the feed point balun and preamplifier. shape of a rectangle or flag-shaped If all goes well, I should be able to have antenna. I am giving my cut bamboo a fantastic receive antenna to receive plenty of time to dry out. Figure 4 below very difficult signals on the other side shows the plan to construct the flag of the globe on the low bands made antenna. The spreaders are bamboo, from materials grown in southern Ten- Figure 3: Schematic of my Flag Antenna the boom is aluminum, the spreader-to- nessee and constructed in southern mast plate is of aluminum, and the Tennessee. I probably need to do some antenna will be attached to an alumi- RF sniffing to find my noise source, but num mast plate connected to a steel I am hoping that this antenna will be mast on an antenna rotator in the top the “cure-all” to “kill two birds with one of some tower section. stone” and solve my noise issue and allow me to work the tough ones on top My plan is that construction of this band (160m). I am hoping to provide receive antenna will commence in an update later in 2021. warm weather late-Spring or early- Summer 2021. Mast plates and spreader plates will be cut and drilled

Figure 4: Construction-Fabrication Plan (Antenna shown vertical for details to be seen – final antenna will be twisted horizontal)

Figure 2: Antenna Pattern of Flag Antenna

Why I Bought... (cont’d from p. 14)

Yaesu FTDX-101D 1. To upgrade to a rig with dual re- 5. To try a Yaesu (never owned one) Jim Spikes, N4KH ceivers while watching how the introduc- tion of the Elecraft K4 goes. 2. Excellent receiver and audio

3. Built in bandscope

4. Filtering and VC Tune

February, 2021 The LongPath Page 14

Product Review—Chameleon Antenna MPAS 2.0 By Steve Molo, KI4KWR

This month’s product review is the the balun (Hybrid-Micro) on and then Chameleon Antenna MPAS (Modular the folding poles which extend full at Portable Antenna System 2.0). This 113 inches. Typically, we set it up with product has been on the market for the 25’ wire as the ground. The 50’ of over a year now and has become my coax with a RFI choke works great camping and Field Day antenna for when used on my Go-Kit IC-706MKIIG. 2020 and the future. The advantage I Using the LDG IT-100 tuner normally is see with this not only being a portable a 3-5 second “zip-zip” and tuned. The antenna covering 160 to 6 meters but SWR before tuning we have seen 2.5:1 the options for setting it up. Some of across all the bands. the possible deployment configura- tions: Vertical / Horizontal / Sloper / Inverted “V” / Inverted “L” / NVIS / Specifications: Balcony / Vehicle (Stationary) and Man- Frequency: 160M – 6 meters Pack. The military style backpack holds everything, and setup takes no more Power: 100 SSB or 50W CW. than five minutes for Jessica and me. Mounting Configuration: 3/8-24 Thread Now you may ask about setup which is a spike in the ground which you screw

The Casual DXer By Kevin Hibbs, KG4TEI

I'm always looking for the easiest one of the oldest programs on the In- passed in clear text across the Inter- way to be the most productive when I ternet called telnet. It was created net. For most of these tasks network sit behind a radio. Often not having back in 1969. I know many hams love administrators now prefer to use Se- hours to devote to chasing DX the most old gear, but most don't actively use a cure Shell (SSH), which offers encryp- bang for my buck is usually during DX radio built 52 years ago during a con- tion and as the name implies, a secure contests. I rarely enter these contests test. I think we are just living by the connection to the host computer. For in a search for the highest scores. No, I motto of if it ain't broke don't fix hams, this isn't much of a concern be- have ulterior motives. I want all time it. Telnet provides a basic communica- cause we aren't sharing passwords, or new countries and new band coun- tion scheme that passes data between other important data through telnet, tries. To make my time more produc- a client, the computer, and a host, the just DX spots. tive I often turn to aids like remote server known as the DX clus- As a last bit of information, if you DX clusters. My prefered logging soft- ter. When the computer connects to want to see what is actually entering ware, N1MM, has a built-in dx cluster the cluster a connection is requested and leaving your computer during a DX telnet software. A quick selection of a and the user is presented with a re- cluster telnet session take a look at a near-by cluster, enter my call sign as quest to login. The user enters a program called WireShark. It captures the user name, and I'm off to the races callsign and the DX cluster uses that network packets and presents them in as N1MM parses the incoming data to information to set up a bi-directional human readable format. WireShark is a display. With the click of the mouse my connection where data is sent back very useful program to network admin- radio tunes to the desired DX frequency and forth in the form of spots. It is a istrators and security professions as it and I complete the contact. What simple, low bandwidth connection has the ability to filter, sort, and follow could be a lot of dial turning takes just method, and provides an easy way to network packets interacting with a a few minutes. I'm sure many, if not share basic data between computers. computer. For more data on telnet most, those reading this article have Telnet has also been used for years wikipedia has a good article on the done the same thing. for connecting to network switches and subject: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telnet. So what's happening behind the other computers to perform configura- That's all for this month. I hope to scenes when I select that ad- tion tasks. However, it has fallen out of see you all on the zoom meeting Tues- dress? The logging program is utilizing favor due to large security holes. This is day. mostly due to the fact that the data is

February, 2021 The LongPath Page 15

January Meeting Minutes Dues Reminder Financial Report By Chris Reed, AI4U By Chris Reed, AI4U By Chris Reed, AI4U

The January 12th meeting of the Thank you to all the members who January beginning balance $8,333.40 North Alabama DX Club was called to have paid your dues for 2021. A quick order at 7:03 pm by President Bob Di- reminder that if you haven't paid your DXer of the year plaque $54.49 perre, K8KI via Zoom. We all agreed 2021 dues, please do so. The pre- February beginning balance $8,278.91 that we miss meeting in person, but it ferred method is using the paypal pay- ment button on the website at was the best alternative to keep the Paypal balance: $577.63 www.nadxc.org. It's ok if you don't have group meeting on a regular basis. Bob from membership dues paypal, you can pay with a debit or made a few brief announcements then credit card. This is a secure purchase. turned it to Chris for the Membership Three membership dues awaiting de- Your dues are greatly appreciately and and Financial reports. After a few posit at the bank. go toward our efforts to promote DX minutes of discussion Bob, K8KI ad- and support when we can. journed the meeting at 7:18 pm. Bob, K8KI presented the program on 73, the basics of EZNEC. The next sched- Chris, uled meeting will be February 9th, 2021 at 7pm with the Zoom session AI4U opening around 6:30 pm for informal social activity.

Respectfully submitted, Winter Field Day Reflections Chris Reed, AI4U By Tom Duncan, KG4CUY

I was skeptical of the value of Winter it (see Mark’s article for a list). Inside Winter FD Thanks Field Day when the idea of mounting Gary’s barn and his blueberry shack By Chris Reed, AI4U an effort started circulating at HARC things were quite comfortable despite meetings several months ago. Would it sleet early on and windy conditions Mark, N4BCD outlined our Winter be worth the work a few of us would outside. There were indeed other WFD Field Day activities in his article. I just have to put out — because surely we stations on the air, although indeed wanted to extend a big thank you for would have lackluster turnout in the more of them running phone than CW. several DX club members that helped depth of winter? Would there be any- Conditions were good enough to work make our small effort possible includ- one else on the air? I had never paid WWA, ME, SFL, and ORG sections and ing: Tom Duncan, KG4CUY, Mark any attention to WFD before, so proba- all the stuff in between. Hard as I tried Morgida, AA2MA, Mark Brown, N4BCD, bly nobody else had either. The con- to explain all this away, it seemed eve- Art Davis, N4UC, and Jim Spikes, N4KH test, or event, or whatever you want to ryone was having a good time. We had and a big thank you to Gary Suckow, call it doesn’t have official ARRL status demonstrated to ourselves at least that W9GSM. Gary was a gracious and hard — even Straight Key Night has that! a viable field day setup could be thrown working host at his farm. Whether it And the CQ 160m CW contest is the together by — in Summer Field Day was coffee, helping to raise antennas, same weekend, so all the CW ops who terms — a small group of people and lending coax, making a great pot of would turn out for the real Summer with less-than-herculean effort. Field Day would be catching up on their coffee and a renting a port a potty to When we tore down Sunday after- allow for the return of recycled coffee, sleep during the day. But I said I’d noon there was a general feeling of Gary was there. Great effort by all in- help, so Saturday morning I left civiliza- accomplishment and “I’m glad I came.” volved. tion and headed for the great wilder- ness of Toney or Harvest or whatever it I learned once again, that nothing Thank you for a fun weekend! is up there. ventured, nothing gained. Chris Reed, AI4U The strangest thing happened. Two very minimal stations were set up in short order, one for phone and one for CW. There were plenty of people to do

February, 2021 The LongPath Page 16

Proposed NADXC Budget for 2021

By the NADXC Board of Directors

ACTUAL in 2020 ACTUAL in

balance on 1/1/2020 on balance

members 50 to reduced 2020. and 2019 for Paid toNARA Donation hosting/Domain Website Zambia Tokelau, Brick NM4T Steve AG4W, for Plaque tabled tabled DX banner tracking KK4TJP Stephen

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

93.16 54.49 32.70

- - -

700.75

160.00 200.00 416.00 235.00

- - - -

8638.51

372.21

8,333.40 8,333.40

(377.28)

9,158.40 9,158.40 9,078.40 8,978.40 8,905.68 8,505.68 8,450.68 8,940.68 8,940.68 8,940.68 8,840.68 8,785.68 8,730.68 8,730.68 8,730.68 8,730.68 8,710.68 8,710.68

12,440.68 12,440.68

Projected

Bank Balance Bank

(5.07)

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

(80.00) (72.72) (55.00) (55.00) (55.00) (20.00)

(100.00) (400.00) (100.00)

Expense

(3,500.00) (4,437.72)

Budgeted

825.00 825.00

8,333.40 8,333.40 3,990.00

Income Income

13,148.40 13,148.40

Budgeted

(reduce to to (reduce

venue & meal & venue

-

(est. 55 members @ @ members 55 (est.

2021

Proposed Budget for for Budget Proposed

Description 1/1/21 Balance Account Bank Current receipts Dues Projected $15) Richardson) (Janet Bill Power Repeater maintenance Repeater Service Domain & Hosting Web Annual Sponsorship Expedition DX Plaque Year the of Ham Young Receipts Banquet DX Club Expenses Banquet DX Club Expenses Speaker DX Banquet 400) supplies) Picnic (picnic Club Annual year the of Dxer Plaque, Fund Speaker Incorporation* State of Sec'y AL with Reservation Name Summary Balance Bank in Difference Net for earmarked club to the $200 of *Donation (2/9/2016) expenses incorporation

Money in Paypal Account Paypal in Money Year for Expenses Net Proposed

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Item

NOTES

February, 2021 The LongPath Page 17